These days it's not unusual to meet the cost of food and lodgings for vulnerable clients yourself, says frontline homeless charity worker Juli Thompson.
Patrick Butler
Yesterday I published a post about a children's charity which was forced to set up its own mini-foodbank to feed the homeless children for whom it ran a Summer playscheme. Several readers contacted me to say that in the era of austerity and cuts, such gestures by frontline workers were not unusual. Here's another example.
Earlier this year, Juli Thompson got a call from a housing association. Could she go and see a young woman living in a privately-rented flat nearby? There'd been a "concern" reported to them but there was not really much they could do over the weekend. So Juli popped round. The door was answered by a young woman, eight months pregnant. The flat had no bed or cooker, and the Mum-to-be - let's call her Frankie - had been living on cold baked beans.
Frankie had no money - her benefits had been stopped - and no food. Official help can be found for people like Frankie: referrals can be made, forms filled in, bureaucratic wheels can be set in motion. But in the meantime? It was Friday afternoon and the local food bank was closed. So Juli went down to the shops and spent £40 of her own money on a food parcel, and £40 on a microwave oven for Frankie.
Dipping into her own pocket to help clients in need is not an unusual occurence for Juli. The charity she works for gets no regular statutory funding, but scrapes together "little pots of money" here and there and can draw on a 400-strong base of volunteers and supporters who can be relied on if the call goes out for in-kind help, such as food parcels. But sometimes, says Juli, it is simply easier to get out the debit card, and "just do it."
On another occasion she got a phone call telling her that a former client, Joe, was being discharged from hospital on a weekend. She knew Joe, knew he was ill, and was painfully aware that he would have nowhere to stay. Her debit card came out again, to put him up in a local BnB for the night. She doesn't begrudge paying from her own pocket from time to time: it's her "moral compass" to help those in need, she says.
Juli, a 40-something former teacher and restaurateur works for a small Bradford-based charity, Inn Churches. It runs a homeless shelter during the winter months, but the deepening impact of recession and public spending cuts mean that people are now turning up to the charity for help "out of season" and as Juli puts it, is "hard to say no" to people who have no roof over their head, or who, like Frankie, need an immediate helping hand.
The numbers of people coming to the charity have increased in recent months: instances of rough sleeping in Bradford have "snowballed" in the past three years. Benefit cuts and sanctions are the main driver of demand, but she's also had a social worker, a nurse and a small businessman come, as clients, to the charity. It is seeing families with children, pensioners and, increasingly, young single people who have been made homeless by new housing benefit restrictions.
Last winter Bradford council was able to offer Department of Health-funded Warm Homes Healthy People cash to local voluntary groups like Inn Churches. Juli welcomed this: there was no time consuming paperwork, just a pot of money that they could draw on to purchase useful "stuff" for homeless clients like bus tickets (to get them to appointments at Department for Work and Pensions offices), food parcels and starter packs for those moving into unfurnished accommodation.
It's not clear whether this funding will return. The DoH warned last year that "there can be no expectation of further funds being made available in future years." Juli also worries about the shrinking social fund, which helps vulnerable people with crisis loans and grants for household essentials. The number of parcels given out by the local foodbank has doubled in the past two months. "The cuts are really starting to affect us in Bradford," she says.
Juli is heartened by the way local people are rallying round. "On the back of the cuts people are being more generous. Cuts mean people are more aware of the situation our clients face." A group of Bradford council workers decided to forgo lunch one day and donated the money they saved - £400 - to the charity; office workers who had won a company prize donated their gift vouchers, enabling Juli to buy a camp bed for a client.
Whether the likes of Inn Churches, and its generous donors will be able to meet with the expected flood of demand in the coming months is yet to be seen. For Juli, its simply important to try to "turn the negative around," to respond to those in need. "We all need to pull together and work with the council and other agencies to support the most vulnerable."
Juli was homeless herself for a year when she was younger: "It never leaves you, that feeling of being helpless."
Are you a charity or public services worker who has had to dip into their own pocket to help out clients as a result of funding cut backs? Email me: patrick.butler@guardian.co.uk or Twitter @patrickjbutler
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